Olga was ugly. It was difficult to think of another adjective to describe her. Her two front teeth protruded to display an unbecoming twist when she smiled, which she seldom did. Her pale, freckled skin exposed every blemish, her hair resembled buttered spaghetti, and as if that wasn’t enough, she inhabited a bulky, amorphous body. At sixteen, when most of the girls at school acquired admirers, she skulked, lumpen and alone in her misery, hating them all and hating herself. Her scathing sarcasm earned her the title, which had she been kinder she might have avoided, of Ugly Olga.
Solitary weekends were spent tramping in the woods next to her home, avoiding her two brothers, who surpassed her meanness but got away with it by being better looking. One fine Saturday morning found her aimlessly following an unused path, recounting to herself her grievous misfortunes. Her steps grew more leaden with the weight of her dismal meditation until eventually she stopped to flick away the sadness leaking down her cheeks. A great longing took hold of her – longing for a single taste of happiness. It had belonged to her once for a short while, but that was before her brothers had forced her in front of a mirror and made sport of her, before she grew spikes in place of her feminine sweetness.
A tiny fleck of colour in the tangled vegetation caught her eye. Drawing aside the creeping mass to see what it was, she discovered a hardly visible, old sign post displaying a remarkably clear red arrow. Intrigued she walked on, wondering what this could mean. Coming to a fork in the track, she scouted half-heartedly
Solitary weekends were spent tramping in the woods next to her home, avoiding her two brothers, who surpassed her meanness but got away with it by being better looking. One fine Saturday morning found her aimlessly following an unused path, recounting to herself her grievous misfortunes. Her steps grew more leaden with the weight of her dismal meditation until eventually she stopped to flick away the sadness leaking down her cheeks. A great longing took hold of her – longing for a single taste of happiness. It had belonged to her once for a short while, but that was before her brothers had forced her in front of a mirror and made sport of her, before she grew spikes in place of her feminine sweetness.
A tiny fleck of colour in the tangled vegetation caught her eye. Drawing aside the creeping mass to see what it was, she discovered a hardly visible, old sign post displaying a remarkably clear red arrow. Intrigued she walked on, wondering what this could mean. Coming to a fork in the track, she scouted half-heartedly
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